Following are the online recordings (webcasts) of recent public programs pertaining to the Library’s international collections. To discover more videos, visit the four area studies divisions here: African and Middle Eastern, Asian, European, and Hispanic.
African and Middle Eastern Division
TITLE: Popular Iranian Cinema Before the Revolution (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Pedram Partovi
EVENT DATE: 2018/04/04
RUNNING TIME: 66 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Pedram Partovi discusses popular Iranian cinema before that country’s Islamic revolution.
Speaker Biography: Author Pedram Partovi is a professor of History at American University.
TITLE: From the Depths of Antiquity: Newly Acquired Torah Scroll (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Gary A. Rendsburg
EVENT DATE: 2018/05/23
RUNNING TIME: 47 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Gary Rendsburg discusses an ancient Torah scroll sheet from the book of Exodus, newly acquired by the Library of Congress.
Speaker Biography: Gary A. Rendsburg is distinguished professor of Jewish history and Blanche and Irving Laurie Chair in Jewish History at Rutgers University.
TITLE: New Topics in Armenian History & Culture (morning) (afternoon) (view on YouTube: morning and afternoon)
SPEAKER: Various
EVENT DATE: 2018/06/26
RUNNING TIME: 154 minutes (morning), 184 minutes (afternoon)
TRANSCRIPT: View morning transcript, afternoon transcript
DESCRIPTION: 22nd Vardanants Day Armenian lecture series, titled “New Topics in Armenian History and Culture” explored the linguistic, artistic, social and musical history of Armenia.
Asian Division
TITLE: Reading Lu Xun Through Carl Jung (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Carolyn Brown
EVENT DATE: 2018/04/12
RUNNING TIME: 62 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Carolyn Brown discussed her just-published book “Reading Lu Xun Through Carl Jung,” which offers a unique approach to the short stories of the most famous modern Chinese writer, Lu Xun (1881-1936). Brown uses foundational elements of the psychology of Carl Jung (1875-1961), who with Freud was the founder of modern Western psychology, to illuminate key structures in the works of this great writer. Approaching these works from a unique direction, Brown’s lecture will shed new light on the psychological patterns within Lu Xun’s most famous story, “The True Story of Ah Q.”
Speaker Biography: Carolyn Brown is a scholar of Chinese literature and the former director of the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress.
TITLE: The Sikh Legacy in Pakistan (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Amardeep Singh
EVENT DATE: 2018/05/08
RUNNING TIME: 119 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Author Amardeep Singh will discuss the past and present of Pakistani Sikhs as told through his travels in Sindh, Baluchistan, Pakistan Administered Kashmir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab.
TITLE: A Sentimental History: Depicting Emotion in Chinese Art (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Anne Burkus-Chasson
EVENT DATE: 2018/06/19
RUNNING TIME: 61 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: In this lecture about emotion and visuality, Anne Burkus-Chasson discussed her research on Chinese paintings and illustrated books and offerred an in-depth look into the paintings of Chen Hongshou, which delineate a narrative event and elicit an emotional response from its viewers. She also referred to themes that engage self-representation, theories of vision and ways of seeing, as well as the interrelationship between words and images, painting and print.
European Division
TITLE: Words, Images & Music: A Dialogue on Torquato Tasso & the Arts (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Laura Benedetti, Peter Lukehart
EVENT DATE: 2017/03/24
RUNNING TIME: 96 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Laura Benedetti of Georgetown University and Peter Lukehart of the National Gallery of Art discuss 16th Century Italian poet Torquato Tasso in a program co-sponsored by the Embassy of Italy and the Italian Cultural Institute in Washington.
Hispanic Division
TITLE: Movies & Popular Culture in Spain Under Franco, 1939-1975 (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Fernando Ramos
EVENT DATE: 2018/03/30
RUNNING TIME: 40 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Under the Franco regime, Spain was a country of passionate moviegoers struggling with the enormous limitations of the cultural life under a dictatorship, a tension at the center of this talk by Fernando Ramos Arenas. This is the story of a fascination with movies under difficult circumstances, in a land in which cinema became a large projection screen for the anxieties, fears and hopes of millions of spectators.
TITLE: I Juana Live in America: An Immigrant’s Creative Journey (view on YouTube)
SPEAKER: Juana Medina
EVENT DATE: 2016/09/21
RUNNING TIME: 52 minutes
TRANSCRIPT: View Transcript
DESCRIPTION: Award-winning illustrator Juana Medina discussed her work and her artistic journey as a Colombian artist living in the United States.
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY: Juana Medina is an illustrator and author of children’s books, as well as a teacher at George Washington University.